Category: Marketing Techniques and Philosophies

By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News, Publishing

It’s bad enough that sploggers go around lifting articles and slapping them up on splogs (spam blogs) with no paragraph breaks and a bunch of Google ads.

Now, Business Week reports on professor Philip M. Parker, “author” of 300,000 scraped books.

I am sorry, but setting a computer robot to pull data from a topic is not authorship. While as a multi-source compilation it probably doesn’t qualify legally as theft, it certainly leaves a bad taste in my mouth! Some of “his” reports sell for as much as $495, too.

Yuck!

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By Posted on Posted in Copywriting, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies

It’s not often that I see a salesletter that not only moves me to immediate action, but also makes me laugh out loud.

Rob Toth’s letter at https://www.buynowwizard.com/report/index.php did just that.

First of all, Rob got me to his page by having a brief tip in Doug Hudiberg’s Daily Marketing Ace. I was so intrigued by the title of the free report: “Buy Now! How To Get Customers Ordering So Fast Your Bank Account May End Up With a Speeding Ticket” that I had to click on over.

Reaching the page I see the same headline and a cute cartoon that directly illustrates it.

After the cartoon and a couple of brief lines, he jumps right in with the zany, humorous tone that pokes fun at the whole genre of sales letters while pulling me further into the content:

Sorry if I seem a bit out of breath. I was just at the hospital and had to hurry back to be able to tell you about this. You definitely want to hear this.

Why was I at the hospital? I went to see a friend of mine. (I feel so bad for this). He was rushed in for surgery hours ago. Doctors say he damaged his jaw’s bone structure when it dropped to the floor hard after having read a sneak-peek copy of my new report that I sent over to him.

Like I said, I feel really bad about it. So let’s have a quick safety meeting you-and-I. Do me a favor and go grab a pillow (or one of those Costco sized bags of marshmallows should do the trick as well) … before you listen to anything more that I say (and definitely before you read my report), please place that pillow (or your baggy) under your jaw. This is for your own good.

Of course, I read all the way down.

And then he’s got a really short window to take action, with a visible, ticking clock counting the time–just a few minutes (warning, once you say yes, you have to get back to the confirmation email very quickly as well–something I think could easily backfire). Since it’s a free report and there’s nothing to lose, I took the bait. I haven’t read the report yet, but I signed up.

I understand why the back button doesn’t work, because he quite correctly wants the time limit to be real. But one thing I’d do differently if I were Rob is make it easier to share the webpage. After I said yes, I wanted to share it, but it wasn’t easy’ the back button didn’t take me there. I finally had to dig through my email trash can and find the Daily Marketing Ace that had the link.

I think this could go viral if it the you-signed-up, confirm-quickly page had some language like

“Did you have fun here? If you want to share the page with your friends, here’s the link.”

For more on great copywriting, BTW, my award-winning book Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World has a huge and informative section.

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By Posted on Posted in Marketing Techniques and Philosophies

Look what a skilled marketer can do to create a news angle.

A government agency, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), sent out a news release advising people to dispose of old prescription meds so they can’t be abused. Since flushing them down the toilet can have ill effects on water sources and the animals that use them,

“Mixing prescription drugs with an undesirable substance, such as used coffee grounds or kitty litter, and putting them in impermeable, nondescript containers, such as empty cans or sealable bags, will further ensure the drugs are not diverted…Ferret waste, like nearly any other form of pet waste, can be effectively used to help prevent the abuse of unused prescription drugs,” SAMHSA spokesman Mark Weber said.

And the American Ferret Association was ready to pounce! That group’s press release noted,

“The U.S. government declares ferret poop to be an effective weapon against drug abuse.”

Brilliant! So brilliant that Reuters (one of the largest newswire services in the world) picked it up.

Can you find some lessons on making yourself newsworthy?

(Thanks to Joan Stewart of PublicityHound.com for tipping me off to this story–I’ve been reading her excellent newsletter for years)

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By Posted on Posted in Blogroll, Customer Service as Marketing, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News, Web 2.0/Social Media

I love discovering fresh, articulate voices who discuss important things. And today I discovered Mike Wagner, of OwnYourOwnBrand.com. He writes elegantly on the brand as based in the customer’s own experience. I particularly enjoyed his story of the broken minor promise that cost a hotel $30,000 in lost future revenue, and also of the receptionist who made him feel special.

What especially interests me is the way I found him. I participate fairly passively on several Web 2.0 social networking sites. This morning, I logged onto Plaxo and found that someone in one of my groups had posted a link to the Thinking Blogger Awards. And Mike was one of the five honored Thinking Bloggers. Is that cool, or what?

If you’re not starting to harness Web 2.0 in your own business, maybe it’s time to start.

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By Posted on Posted in Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Politics

A Democratic Congressional staffer wrote a piercing and widely circulated memo showing that the Republicans know how to frame things, while the Dems gather ’round the policy-wonk water cooler and talk to themselves in dull messages.

This of course is nothing new. Back in the ’90’s, Newt Gingrich unleashed the “Contract With America” (which many progressives quickly dubbed “Contract On America”, as indeed, it turned out to be).

The last really powerful Dem to be able to sound-bite a key message so it becomes a rallying cry was probably Lyndon Johnson, with his Great Society, War on Poverty, etc.

Yeah, so read the article. And read books like George Lakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant, or other books on persuasion. While social change takes more than sloganeering, it definitely helps if you can frame the discourse. Failure to do so is why both Kerry and Gore were close enough to defeat that the election could actually be stolen from them, and why their weak and ineffectual attempts and keeping their victories fell flat.

I think it’s also interesting that what led me to this article was a blog post by copywriter Ben Settle (I read a lot of copywriting newsletters) called Democrats Suck at Copywriting? Didn’t hear about this one from any of my progressive pen-pals.

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By Posted on Posted in General Commentary, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies

I use automated translations frequently to get a rough idea of what someone is talking about, and some pages of my sites offer free translation. But I know better than to rely on them for anything that really matters if I’m translating more than a single word.

Here’s an example of why. I am quite sure that a human translator would have rendered this very differently:

The material that we include has expressed you the aspirations of many people with longings to change radically the transforming processing that the art has in the human beings. If, by any motive, it not out of your current interest or possibilities of participation, a lot we will thank transfer this anxiety to your close persons.

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By Posted on Posted in Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News

OK, so I’m a word guy. I use the power of copy to inform, persuade, and hopefully make a difference. When I’m forced to create a layout, it tends to be barebones–the minimum work necessary to get my words to appear.

Still, I have a lot of respect for good design as a component of good marketing. Here’s a link to 45 prize-winning blog designs. Most of them are easy to rest your eyes on, eye-catching, and still easy to read.

If my assistant and I can figure out something easy, maybe this blog will start looking nicer. But then again, I’m a jeans-and-t-shirt kind of a guy, so maybe not.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies

I was absolutely shocked to see a reference to a book by the infamous Canter & Siegel in one of the publishing discussion lists I participate in.

This is the response I sent:

Are they still around? I find their behavior utterly loathsome! Maybe 12 years ago when I was very new with Internet marketing, I ordered Canter & Siegel’s book from a book club–and lo and behold it was, “we invented newsgroup spamming, aren’t we great?”

Yup–these two are the ones who gleefully take credit for inventing spam, and thus killing the Internet as a viable one-to-one and one-to-many communication tool. I’m sure there’s a special circle in Hell reserved for them and a few thousand of their followers. If there is any justice, they will spend lifetimes chained to their computers, deleting unwanted mail until their eyes give out and they get a jolt of electricity every time they fall asleep over their keyboards. I wouldn’t give them a penny, I don’t care *what* they’ve done since.

Normally, if I buy a book I’m not crazy about, I figure it’s my tough luck and I give it away. I had a moral problem with this one, and I returned it for full credit–with a note encouraging them to think about dropping it from their catalog.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Customer Service as Marketing, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, People Helping People

As found in John Kremer’s newsletter from earlier this summer.

This is in very close alignment with the principles I discuss at length in Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First. All of it rings true, and I particularly like the truth and humor in #6 and #10.

Excerpted from Andy Sernovitz’s Word of
Mouth Marketing. As CEO of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association,
Sernovitz excerpted the association’s manifesto. Here it is:

1. Happy customers are your best advertising. Make people happy.

2. Marketing is easy. Earn the respect and recommendation of your
customers. They will do your marketing for you, for free.

3. Ethics and good service come first.

4. You are the user experience (not what your ads say you are).

5. Negative word of mouth is an opportunity. Listen and learn.

6. People are already talking. Your only option is to join the conversation.

7. Be interesting, or be invisible.

8. If it’s not worth talking about, it’s not worth doing.

9. Make the story of your company a good one.

10. It is more fun to work at a company that people want to talk about.

11. Use the power of word of mouth to make business treat people better.

12. Honest marketing makes more money.

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By Posted on Posted in Marketing Techniques and Philosophies

Master copywriter Gary Bencivenga is always worth reading. I particularly liked his latest, on how to persuade with metaphor. The example of his own lawyer intervening on Gary’s real estate deal with “You want to sell Gary and Pauline a toy store on the day after Christmas. No fair!” is worth the article by itself.

Someone who’s great at combining metaphor, cliche, and a fresh twist is Sam Horn, author of Tongue Fu and other books–and that book title is a perfect example of the magic she works. If I ever need help naming a product, I’ll hire her. Meanwhile, click here if you want her free report on “how to POP! and STAND OUT IN ANY CROWD” (capitals in the original)–the offer is on the left side, a bit hard to see.

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